It was like that for almost two minutes, and Cade craned his neck, straining to see what was ahead. But all he saw was the endless tunnel, taking him ever deeper into the ship.

And then … he saw it. Lights, coming up fast. Cade extended his legs, scraping them against the smooth walls, trying to slow himself down.

It was in the nick of time, as he smashed into a dead end, knocking the wind out of him. The bomb near broke his ribs, such was its momentum.

He choked, and threw up into his suit. But no time to heave more, no time to blink away the tears from his watering eyes.

This had to be it.

With trembling hands, Cade tugged open his backpack. Pulled out the Gray figurine.

And screamed in horror.

The toy was crushed.

Its head had come clean off, broken by the impact of the missile against his chest.

He cursed, and cursed again. Screamed into the silent oblivion. How could he have been so stupid?

His vision blurred as he cried bitter tears and looked around for something, anything to use to blow up the missile. He should have let it crash into the wall—perhaps that would have blown it up.

Only then did he truly see where he was. The lights he had noticed seemed like emergency lighting, flickering on and off, giving off a low, electric glow.

There was a glass panel in front of him, though it had not cracked with the impact of his crash. But it was what was behind it that took his interest. There, floating in liquid … were the pantheon.

It had to be, for he counted twenty-one of them. Living creatures, so deep inside their ship. They could be nothing else.

The sight sickened him.

In his mind’s eye, he had imagined malevolent figures in black hooded robes, cackling on ancient stone thrones and rubbing their decrepit hands with glee.

These things … they might hardly count as alive at all. They were featureless. Like the torsos of deboned pigs—blobs of pink, semitranslucent flesh, hanging in liquid. Pickled meat, bereft of appendages or senses.

Each one was plugged into a mess of tube and wires, running into the walls of the ship. Metal antennae studded the walls, and the flesh twitched horribly as he swept his headlamps from one to the next.

Eons of time relying on machines had rotted away their limbs. Electric senses had robbed them of their corporeal ones. They were the ghosts in the machine. The ghosts of life.

As he pressed his hand against the wall, he felt something. A vibration. Not constant, but intensifying and ebbing. It was almost as if … he leaned his helmet against the glass.

“… will give you riches beyond your imagining. Immortality, should you want it. We can make you a member of the pantheon. I never lie, Cade. I never lie. Do not do this—”

Cade had always wondered what Abaddon sounded like. And now he knew. It was the Codex’s voice. The electric one. There was no humanity to be had. Nothing even close to it.